From the Ocean from teh Stars (77 page)

and a mild but genuine sympathy toward Alvin, had been sufficient motive for all that he had done. Though he had given encouragement
and assistance to Alvin, he had never believed that anything like this
could ever really happen.

Despite the gulf of years and experience between them, Alvin's will
had always been more powerful than his own. It was too late to do anything about it now; Khedron felt that events were sweeping him along
toward a climax utterly beyond his control.

In view of this, it was a little unfair that Alystra obviously regarded
him as Alvin's evil genius and showed an inclination to blame him for
all that had happened. Alystra was not really vindictive, but she was
annoyed, and part of her annoyance focused on Khedron. If any action of hers caused him trouble, she would be the last person to be sorry.

They parted in stony silence when they had reached the great circular
way that surrounded the park. Khedron watched Alystra disappear into
the distance and wondered wearily what plans were brewing in her mind.

There was only one thing of which he could be certain now. Boredom
would not be a serious problem for a considerable time to come.

Alystra acted swiftly and with intelligence. She did not bother to
contact Eriston and Etania; Alvin's parents were pleasant nonentities
for whom she felt some affection but no respect. They would only waste
time in futile arguments and would then do exactly as Alystra was doing
now.

Jeserac listened to her story without apparent emotion. If he was
alarmed or surprised, he concealed it well—so well that Alystra was
somewhat disappointed. It seemed to her that nothing so extraordinary and important as this had ever happened before, and Jeserac's matter-
of-fact behavior made her feel deflated. When she had finished, he ques
tioned her at some length, and hinted, without actually saying so, that she might have made a mistake. What reason was there for supposing
that Alvin had really left the city? Perhaps it had all been a trick at her
expense; the fact that Khedron was involved made this seem highly
probable. Alvin might be laughing at her, concealed somewhere in Dias-
par, at this very moment.

The only positive reaction she got out of Jeserac was a promise to
make inquiries and to contact her again within a day. In the meantime
she was not to worry, and it would also be best if she said nothing to
anyone else about the whole affair. There was no need to spread alarm
over an incident that would probably be cleared up in a few hours.

Alystra left Jeserac in a mood of mild frustration. She would have

been more satisfied could she have seen his behavior immediately after
she had left.

Jeserac had friends on the Council; he had been a member himself
in his long life, and might be again if he was unlucky. He called three of his most influential colleagues and cautiously aroused their interest. As Alvin's tutor, he was well aware of his own delicate position and was
anxious to safeguard himself. For the present, the fewer who knew what
had happened, the better.

It was immediately agreed that the first thing to do was to contact
Khedron and ask him for an explanation. There was only one defect
in this excellent plan. Khedron had anticipated it and was nowhere to be
found.

If there was any ambiguity about Alvin's position, his hosts were very
careful not to remind him of it. He was free to go anywhere he wished
in Airlee, the little village over which Seranis ruled—though that was too
strong a word to describe her position. Sometimes it seemed to Alvin
that she was a benevolent dictator, but at others it appeared that she had
no powers at all. So far he had failed completely to understand the social
system of Lys, either because it was too simple or else so complex that its
ramifications eluded him. All he had discovered for certain was
that Lys was divided into innumerable villages, of which Airlee was a
quite typical example. Yet in a sense there were no typical examples, for
Alvin had been assured that every village tried to be as unlike its neigh
bors as possible. It was all extremely confusing.

Though it was very small, and contained less than a thousand people, Airlee was full of surprises. There was hardly a single aspect of life that did not differ from its counterpart in Diaspar. The differences extended
even to such fundamentals as speech. Only the children used their voices
for normal communication; the adults scarcely ever spoke, and after a
while Alvin decided that they did so only out of politeness to him. It was a curiously frustrating experience to feel oneself enmeshed in a great net
of soundless and undetectable words, but after a while Alvin grew accustomed to it. It seemed surprising that vocal speech had survived at all
since there was no longer any use for it, but Alvin later discovered that
the people of Lys were very fond of singing, and indeed of all forms of
music. Without this incentive, it was very likely that they would long ago
have become completely mute.

They were always busy, engaged on tasks or problems which were
usually incomprehensible to Alvin. When he could understand what they
were doing, much of their work seemed quite unnecessary. A considerable

part of their food, for example, was actually grown, and not synthesized
in accordance with patterns worked out ages ago. When Alvin commented
on this, it was patiently explained to him that the people of Lys liked
to watch things grow, to carry out complicated genetic experiments and
to evolve ever more subtle tastes and flavors. Airlee was famous for its
fruit, but when Alvin ate some choice samples they seemed to him no
better than those he could have conjured up in Diaspar by no more effort
than raising a finger.

At first he wondered if the people of Lys had forgotten, or had never
possessed, the powers and machines that he took for granted and upon
which all life in Diaspar was based. He soon found that this was not
the case. The tools and the knowledge were there, but they were used
only when it was essential. The most striking example of this was pro
vided by the transport system, if it could be dignified by such a name.
For short distances, people walked, and seemed to enjoy it. If they were
in a hurry, or had small loads to move, they used animals which had obviously been developed for the purpose. The freight-carrying species
was a low, six-legged beast, very docile and strong but of poor intelligence.
The racing animals were of a different breed altogether, normally walking
on four legs but using only their heavily muscled hind limbs when they
really got up speed. They could cross the entire width of Lys in a few
hours, and the passenger rode in a pivoted seat strapped on the creature's
back. Nothing in the world would have induced Alvin to risk such a ride, though it was a very popular sport among the younger men. Their finely bred steeds were the aristocrats of the animal world, and were well aware
of it. They had fairly large vocabularies, and Alvin often overheard
them talking boastfully among themselves about past and future victories.
When he tried to be friendly and attempted to join in the conversation, they pretended that they could not understand him, and if he persisted
would go bounding off in outraged dignity.

These two varieties of animal sufficed for all ordinary needs, and
gave their owners a great deal of pleasure which no mechanical con
trivances could have done. But when extreme speed was required or
vast loads had to be moved, the machines were there, and were used
without hesitation.

Though the animal life of Lys presented Alvin with a whole world
of new interests and surprises, it was the two extremes of the human population range that fascinated him most of all. The very young and the
very old—both were equally strange to him and equally amazing. Airlee's
most senior inhabitant had barely attained his second century, and had
only a few more years of life before him. When
he
had reached that age,

Alvin reminded himself, his body would scarcely have altered, whereas
this old man, who had no chain of future existences to look forward to as compensation, had almost exhausted his physical powers. His hair
was completely white, and his face an unbelievably intricate mass of
wrinkles. He seemed to spend most of his time sitting in the sun or
walking slowly around the village exchanging soundless greetings with
everyone he met. As far as Alvin could tell he was completely contented,
asking no more of life, and was not distressed by its approaching end.

Here was a philosophy so much at variance with that of Diaspar as
to be completely beyond Alvin's comprehension. Why should anyone accept death when it was so unnecessary, when you had the choice of
living for a thousand years and then leaping forward through the millen
niums to make a new start in a world that you have helped to shape? This
was one mystery he was determined to solve as soon as he had the chance
of discussing it frankly. It was very hard for him to believe that Lys had
made this choice of its own free will, if it knew the alternative that existed.

He found part of his answer among the children, those little creatures who were as strange to him as any of the animals of Lys. He spent much
of his time among them, watching them at their play and eventually being accepted by them as a friend. Sometimes it seemed to him that they were
not human at all, their motives, their logic, and even their language were
so alien. He would look unbelievingly at the adults and ask himself how
it was possible that they could have evolved from these extraordinary creatures who seemed to spend most of their lives in a private world of
their own.

And yet, even while they baffled him, they aroused within his heart
a feeling he had never known before. When—which was not often, but
sometimes happened—they burst into tears of utter frustration or de
spair, their tiny disappointments seemed to him more tragic than Man's
long retreat after the loss of his Galactic Empire. That was something too
huge and remote for comprehension, but the weeping of a child could
pierce one to the heart.

Alvin had met love in Diaspar, but now he was learning something
equally precious, and without which love itself could never reach its
highest fulfillment but must remain forever incomplete. He was learning
tenderness.

If Alvin was studying Lys, Lys was also studying him, and was not
dissatisfied with what it had found. He had been in Airlee for three days when Seranis suggested that he might like to go further afield and see
something more of her country. It was a proposal he accepted at once—

on condition that he was not expected to ride one of the village's prize
racing beasts.

"I can assure you," said Seranis, with a rare flash of humor, "that
no one here would dream of risking one of their precious animals. Since
this is an exceptional case, I will arrange transport in which you will
feel more at home. Hilvar will act as your guide, but of course you can
go wherever you please."

Alvin wondered if that was strictly true. He imagined that there
would be some objection if he tried to return to the little hill from whose
summit he had first emerged into Lys. However, that did not worry him
for the moment since he was in no hurry to go back to Diaspar, and
indeed had given little thought to the problem after his initial meeting
with Seranis. Life here was still so interesting and so novel that he was
still quite content to live in the present.

He appreciated Seranis's gesture in offering her son as his guide, though doubtless Hilvar had been given careful instructions to see that
he did not get into mischief. It had taken Alvin some time to get accus
tomed to Hilvar, for a reason which he could not very well explain to him
without hurting his feelings. Physical perfection was so universal in Di
aspar that personal beauty had been completely devalued; men noticed
it no more than the air they breathed. This was not the case in Lys, and
the most flattering adjective that could be applied to Hilvar was
"homely." By Alvin's standards, he was downright ugly, and for a while he had deliberately avoided him. If Hilvar was aware of this, he showed
no sign of it, and it was not long before his good-natured friendliness had broken through the barrier between them. The time was to come when Alvin would be so accustomed to Hilvar's broad, twisted smile, his strength, and his gentleness that he could scarcely believe he had
ever found him unattractive, and would not have had him changed for
any consideration in the world.

They left Airlee soon after dawn in a small vehicle which Hilvar
called a ground-car, and which apparently worked on the same principle
as the machine that had brought Alvin from Diaspar. It floated in the air
a few inches above the turf, and although there was no sign of any guide rail, Hilvar told him that the cars could run only on predetermined routes.
All the centers of population were linked together in this fashion, but
during his entire stay in Lys Alvin never saw another ground-car in use.

Hilvar had put a great deal of effort into organizing this expedition,
and was obviously looking forward to it quite as much as Alvin. He had
planned the route with his own interests in mind, for natural history was
his consuming passion and he hoped to find new types of insect life in